Factors predicting survival in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma

    ZHANG Baiª²Hong, YUE Xiaoª²Qiang£¬HUANG Wenª²Hua

    Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To identify patients and disease related factors that influence the survival of patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS: Sixteen variables from 133 patients with advanced stage IV HCC were investigated through uniª² and multivariate analyses. The survival curves were plotted with Kaplanª²Meier and compared by using a log rank test. RESULTS: Fiftyª²six patients were Childª²Pugh A, 51 were B and 26 were C. The tumor was solitary in 12 cases and multinodular/massive in 121 cases. The overall median survival time was 3.1 months (95% CI 1.97 to 4.23) and it was 3.5 months for 101 stage IVª²A patients and 1.8 months for 32 stage IVª²B patients. The difference was not significant (P=0.2822). The multivariate study identified tumor size (P=0.010) as independent predictors for mortality. CONCLUSION: The outcome of advanced HCC is homogeneously grim and none of the available systems allow an accurate stratification of the patients to define their prognosis. ......